The Philippines :-)

Beautiful and strange...

Since last Friday I am in the Philippines. After a short but exhausting flight during the night we arrived at Manila around seven in the morning. Got money and took a bus to the north of Luzon (Baguio). Uninteresting town where we just slept and we took a bus early the next day to Sagada. This small place is really nice to spend a couple of days. The ride there is one never to forget! We visited a waterfall which can only be reached by walking through the rice terraces where this area is famous for. Also visited some hanging coffins and a cave where they "bury", stack the coffins of the death.




Today we took a bus to Banaue, another place famous for the rice fields. The bus trip itself has to be one of worlds most beautiful trips, seeing the inmense rice terraces and driving over small, unpaved roads through the mountains... just great!! The ones here are even more exciting than the ones in Sagada. Did a nice tour through some of the fields and tomorrow we go to another town in this area.



The Philippines are kind of strange... although it is an Asian country, the people and their language and habits are totally different from all other Asian countries I have been to. Almost all of them speak English and their native language sounds like a mix between Spanish and English. Same goes for the food... it is not as special as Thai or Chinese food. They serve either Western fast food such as burgers, or rice with a little bit of meat or fish. Too bad we have not been able to find really good food. The one good thing they do have is cheap and tasty liquor. A wide choice between gin, brandy, rum and whisky for next to nothing isn't particularly bad :-)

That is it for now. Tomorrow we have an overnight bus to Manila and from there we fly south to Negros island, hoping to find a great beach to chill on for a couple of days!!

Groeten uit "Azie",
Rudolf